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Thief Gold crashes

I had to force install Thief Gold. No surprise there, but when I tried to play it, the game crashed on me. A dialog box appeared saying, "Thief Gold encountered a problem....." I went to the help section here and was told that this problem is associated with Vista. Only I'm using XP!

incidentally, I tried installing the unofficial update for Thief Gold, Darkloader, DDfix, and OrGy's texture patch, but when I go to play, the graphics are bad, I get mixed "colors", and the same end result: crashes.

So after all that, I uninstalled Thief Gold, and am starting from square 1. I can't even get past the opening screen (the one where EIDOS appears in big blue letters) before I get the dialog box "Thief Gold encountered a problem blahblahblah....."

post your full hardware specs. any chance you are running hd radeon under winxp? where exactly are you crashing - right before you would get into the game, after clicking the "play mission" button? and the videos play, you say?

post your full hardware specs. any chance you are running hd radeon under winxp? where exactly are you crashing - right before you would get into the game, after clicking the "play mission" button? and the videos play, you say?

I'm not running any extra pci or pci-e cards, so there shouldn't be a chance of my tower running an hd radeon video.

Before all the updates, I was crashing right after I double-clicked on the Thief:Gold icon. After the updates, I crash a few seconds after the game starts. Same thing every time: bad graphics, ghosting, screen turns colors (it was almost psychedelic, actually) , and everything freezes.

back to square 1

Okay, so I removed Thief Gold and reinstalled it. I click on the executable, and the dialog box pops up saying, "Thief Gold has encountered a problem....." I go to the help section here and I see where this kinda problem is associated with Vista. I'm using XP, but I tread on.

Compatability mode didn't work as I get the same crash at (roughly) the same point. So I look for a patch (The Thief Gold version I use is 1.09). I found here, Thief 1.33. I download it, extract the file to c:\Thief Gold, and I when I click on Thief 1.33 it says "Thief 1.33 can't find the installation directory, make sure you have installed the game correctly and try again." There is a file in my programs folder called Thief Gold (found in the START menu), but that's not where I installed Thief Gold.

So I'm back here looking for solutions. I wish I had more time to try Vodoo's and ValmontPhl's solutions, but I have to go to work. Aargggghhhhh!!!!!!!!

so basically, you should try this: make a clean install of thief (yaay), use FlipTIB, see whether the game runs (this will get you no mods or widescreen, but hey, running without mods is still better than not running at all). if that won't get you anywhere, apply TFix, and hdradeon fix as well.

a reminder - make sure you are using the latest intel graphics driver. old intel drivers can cause a lot of pain, as they are, well, just horrible. the latest ones should be less horrible. use some utility like gpu-z if you are not sure what kind of gpu do you have (should help you to download the correct driver).

That got me into the game, but the graphics were "razor-bladeish". Depending on how I moved the mouse, determined if i was going to see certain parts of a particular scene. For example, if I moved the mouse a certain way a wall torch would appear (where it should be). move it again, it would flicker or be cut in half or both.

I'm going to break into Cragscleft now. Initially, this is the point where I started noticing the problems. I'll report back, but thus far this is what I've noticed:

While the intro clip and cutscenes are playing well, I still have to deal with the black borders on both sides of the screen. Same for when I'm loading a game, buying items, selecting difficulty level, etc. I've also noticed that every now and then a "razor-ish" effect shows up, but only for a split second, if that. I do NOT have to deal with the borders while I'm plying the game, though.

The other thing I've noticed (and this is what I find most pleasing) the graphics are sharper! Better, I mean! For example, the gold bottles of wine, the loot, they all appear better defined. Instead of a solid gold plate or bowl, you can see intricate designs in them instead of just plain gold. Cool, huh?

Again, the black borders are a totally normal thing if you have a wide screen monitor : the videos and game menus are of 4:3 aspect ratio, while in game it probably isn't if you got the resolution set to match with your monitor using TFix / DDfix / Darkwidescreen etc.

The items being more detailed is probably due to one of the various models/textures enhancement packs included in TFix.